Sunday, March 24, 2013

Yes. I finally went to the canal! We went to the temple in the morning and
then my comp and I hitched a ride with another zone that was at the temple, my
old zone actually, and away we went. I figured it was a good way to celebrate my
9 month halfway point birthday! haha The canal was just like any locks in Seattle... the only difference was that the
ship was HUGE haha It was cool. I felt like a major tourist for the first time.
9 months! I can't believe it and I had my bebe girl (mi hija) at 9 months... how
perfect... hahahahaha (Tina note: When a new missionary arrives they are called a baby daughter to the training companion.)

My companion is amazing as always. She takes the reins when I'm running out of
juice. She was so prepared to come on a mish. I love hearing all the stories
from my comps of their lives and why they are here. Everyone has such a
personal story. I love Hna Navas tons!

You know that Latinos don't leave their parents house like ever. It's perfectly
normal to live with them until you die, even if you're married. In many ways
that's awesome unity. But with our culture and tendencies, we have to get out of
the house! hahaha my Latino friends always freak when I say that my parents say
I can stay in the house if I'm going to school or pay to stay, but really they
want me to eventually leave... hahaha cracks me up every time...

I wish we could study all day! 4 hours of study isn't enough! haha I'm finishing Revelations this week and the New Testament is done! I love the New Test. It means
more now than ever before as a mish...

No baptisms planned for this month. I do want
to warn people though... one of our investigators is super hesitant in going back
for a 4th time because someone said something about wearing nice clothes,
skirts and white shirts. She was rubbed the wrong way cause of course she and
another guy were the only ones that she noticed in regular clothes.... We have to
be super careful about people visiting the church and of our example to others
as members of the Church of Jesus Christ.

You have no idea how jealous I am... I want to see a movie! SOOO bad. I think
that is the thing I miss most.... and trombone OHHHH I played a trombone Sat! I also would like to end my
letter with, I ate a fish's eye ball and I liked it. Tasted like bacon sin sal.
hahahahaha!

Love the mish. I can't believe that tomorrow I complete 9 months in the mish! It's crazy! I still feel brand new! loooooooovvvveeeeee ya'll!

The papers on the door are on my house.
this was a surprise. it was great! I love them. the family we live with are
awesome! haha. I{m pretty sure the drawing of like a nefita looking man is supposed to be me... haha

the other photos are at member's house. I love her. seriously. so much.
they feed us on Sundays and surprised me with CAKE! I may have started the cake
fight in the picture where I{m holding the cake and it{s in the face of my comp.
haha. loved it. this is the day of my birthday. it was a great
birthday....

we finally went ice blocking. the APs bought ice and we headed to parque omar
in the city. it was great! soooo utah... haha a good multi zone pday. my mom
and i and my hija haha.

Misc. Stories

So my hija tells everyone the bad things I did to her like the first day we
walked like 45 minutes to get home at 9pm and she got home with blisters on her
feet. (this was the plan haha she has to learn how the mish is! no she knows!
it's all out of love) also that I told her the duros were alcohol... they are
actually like popsicles that they make in little bags. She was walking
around for about 3 weeks thinking that the whole world sells liquor. so I asked
for one at a little tienda and she was like no! hna no lo diga! what are they
going to think of the mish!? when she saw what it was, she was so mad! haha she
was like all these days I've been dying of sed in the hot sun and I thought the
people were selling alcohol to cool off! also, she says I hit her... but that's a
complete lie. I just elbow her in the face once in a while on accident cause
her face is right at the right height.... that's not my fault. I love my hija.

So I went to the dr and she said it was a bacteria on my face and a fungus on my legs. yeah! my skin hates my life! haha so I got
meds. yum yum yum.

I GOT MY SHOES. and now I have some wonderful blisters on my little pinky
toes. they're about as big as my toes are. haha. but the shoes will wear in.
or my feet will... whatever one is first. thank you soooo much. last week my
old pair finally really died. the hole on the bottom is huge and I was basically walking on rocks... haha. so know it's perfect. I have 2 good
walking shoes and lots of fun shoes.

So, I could just copy my words from last week about my comp. She´s completely amazing. Yesterday was the best birthday I have ever had cause por
fin we had a day of hard work that showed fruit and we laughed and we walked and
we had citas and we worked tons with members and we had investigators in church
and it was just great. I want that every single day for Hna Navas. She
deserves it! She talks tons in lessons. she commits. she testifies. she
listens. she asked questions. she contacts. she studies. she prays. she
believes. she loves. she loves this work so much. I´m so happy to be her
comp.

I love working with members in our ward; we made a list where the members can sign up to work with us,
especially with the elders who have opened the area here. It has really gotten
a lot of members to get active. We´re also talking with members to invite their
peeps to clases ingles on Saturdays. It´s really quite easy in this area to get
the members excited to do mish work. I feel like a missionary! I love training. I love working.

In response to training her missionary:
When mish train, you´re with your hijo or hija for two changes (12 weeks) but my
hija is AMAZING so I´m telling Pres Ward that she´s ready when he needs her. So
I´ll either be here for 6 or 12 more weeks.

In response to how her birthday was:
I had a great birthday. And it´s pretty much like the states birthday haha, but
it´s in Spanish! haha I loved it. We worked hard and God seriously blessed us
SO much yesterday. It´s amazing all the little things he´ll give us just to
make us happy for a day.In response to not using electronic communication:
It´s super weird... I know. but it´s such a cool experience. especially
in the world we´re in... I´m like phone less, tv less, game less. all the things that this generation is obsessed with, I get a chance to be completely set apart from and just communicate with people all day instead of a screen. I
love it.

In response to what are you eating:

I WISH I could eat healthy! Panameños fry EVERYTHING in oil first and after. and you eat a plate of rice
with EVERY meal whether it´s spaghetti or eggs or
soup (I wrote soap first cause the words in Spanish get all twisted around...)
or potatos, you get rice. and we get fed ALL the time. You´d think we´d get like real
fruit juice here, but it´s all from a package, like Koolaid but better. I´m
getting fatty! it´s terrible! haha

In response to missing my sister's kitty Lulu:

pobresita, lulu! tell her hello for me and I miss her! I really do... all the
gatos here are nasty gross... I miss my clean bugless cats that aren´t ugly...

In response to what are the church buildings like:

The church buildings are pretty much all the same. It really depends though. They´re a lot different than home though, one thing is cause no one here in Panama has carpet. There are different types of buildings though. I know of
one that´s just like a warehouse thing. My last one was like a portable
building thing, you know that like comes on a truck, but it´s still totally
obvious that it´s from the church. haha

In response to doing laundry:

Today we took some of our study time in the morning to go to the
laundry mat and wash clothes. It doesn´t take that long. and when you have a
day from 6:30 am to 10:30 pm without stopping, you have time. kinda. maybe.
actually, maybe that´s a lie.

so this is random... but this old lady has this sewing machine that is absolutely gorgeous... it´s a Phico Sewing machine co. Deluxe with gold painted emblems and
silver metal accents. says enber silk norm. it´s super old and awesome. it´s
so interesting cause the poor peoples here have these amazing antique things!
and they use these antique things. but seriously this machine is beautiful.

Tomorrow we´re headed to the temple... We´re going with just a couple other elders tomorrow morning at 8. meaning we
have to leave at like 5:40 am cause of the retched traffic in Panama City and
school has started for everyone so there are even more people.... I love going to the temple... and I´m sorry for all the people who went on mishes and they couldn´t go. We have an awesome beautiful temple in Panama! I love going all the time with my comps.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

hey hey. so I hope you weren´t all worried yesterday.... the power was out in
all of Panama so we didn´t get to use Internet. but here I am. (Tina comment: of course we would never worry anything was wrong, like a car accident...)

I´m so grateful for an amazing ward. (the only thing we need is a piano player!
haha, I played piano for the first time ever in Sacrament meeting. I made soooo
many mistakes, but oh well, no one cares... haha, so I´ll try and I´ll practice!

a few random things:

pday yesterday we went iceblocking in parque omar in the city with the APs
and Panama zone and alcalde dias. and I went down the hill on a huge chunk of
ice with my first companion and got a good video.

last pday was soooooo nice and relaxing. we hung out in the interior at a
finca. pretty much just sat in a hamaka, explored the river with crocks and ate Panamanian food all day. so nice.

the week before we were doing service with the elders at one of our
investigator´s houses and I cut down a giant lemon tree with a chain saw.
that´s right, the guy asked me to do it and not the elders. haha loved it.
prolly not a good thing to do in the mish when we´re not even allowed to use
machetes haha but when else will I get the chance in my mish to show my might
and power.

New Companion

now... about my companion. She´s super awesome. more strict on
rules and things like that than I am, but that´s all cool. I love her. she
came ready. she only had 2 weeks in the Missionary Training Center in Guatemala. Now the Latinas only have 2 weeks
and the gringos 6! I´m personally glad that I had 9. I enjoyed the MTC and CCM.
at least that´s what I remember. but I also remember thinking... what more can
I learn here in the CCM after 6 weeks that I can´t learn in the field and better
out there with a Latina companion....? so I think it´s a good thing. So, my new companion is de Honduras, the capital. She´s so cute and she
wants to learn and wants to work. She has so much energy.

I'M TRAINING! that´s right! Shhoooooot! I´m so freaking excited! I doubt I´m ready, but I
doubt I could be much more ready! I´m sooooo EXCITED! I´m so pumped. And this area is like a perfect area to be your first. I´m
excited for her. The members and the people in this area are fantastic.

We went contacting in another area for a couple hours. I was grateful for my area
and my investigators after that day. when you´re away from them for a day, you
realize how much you love them! WE met some awesome people in her area though!
I wish they were in my area! haha. point of the story is that I love divisions.
I was a little afraid of them at first, but now, I look forward to doing it
again sometime.

There are seriously people who want to learn more! I just wish the world wasn´t
always so busy. it really gets in the way. They have a desire planted in their
soul to learn what they already known in their heart, but they are so
weighed down by the pressures and lusts of the world! oh how the scriptures
preach the truth concerning the darkening world before the Savior comes again.
I´m glad to know that I´m on the right side and that I´m here fighting.

A man who got baptized last week went to the temple this week and did
baptisms! wow! we were supposed to call him and tell him that bishop said that he
couldn´t go until the next time when he gets the priesthood... but we could NOT
get a hold of him before the day! so he showed up and... the bishop gave him the
priesthood and to work he went in the temple! the bishop wasn´t very happy about
it, but we tried as hard as we could. but you should have seen him when we
talked to him about the temple afterwards. he was amazed! he LOVED it. and he
was telling his wife all about it. That just showed me that it was what the Lord
wanted. Our Padre knew that he was ready and knew that he needed to go. He is
amazing! The Temple is amazing. The gospel of Jesus Christ is
amazing. The Lord is working hard out here with us.

y... fuimos a Portobelo! in Colon! it was great! it was gorgeous. we went with
2 other zones. look up the town. and the black Christ there. so while we were there we got a group of dances to come dance
for us! it was awesome! we all paid like 2 bucks. they came out to eh fort on
the water and danced. the little crazy
boys are hilarious! and they dragged us out to dance with them. one of the
little boys has a bra hanging from his belt. don´t know if you can see it in
the pic. but like they were locos!!! they dances super close to us and would
run up behind us as we walked away! those locos! haha
it was hilarious! these boys are like 14 years old! loved
it. it was an awesome pday. we were so late.... cause to
get to Colon we had to get to Panama to Albrook Mall and then take a bus up there...
and back and all that jazz. but let me tell you... Panama is GORGEOUS.

(Previous post pictures) so the story of the Congo dancers and the paintings.... there is this queen with
the people and the devil comes and she protects them. look up the Congo in
Panama in Colon on YouTube and look up the story. it´s awesome! then you´ll get
a taste of what I saw.

I want to write soooo much more... but I´ve already been on her for an hour! how
does it go sooo fast! much love sent from panama!

Who's who?

I am a daughter, a sister, a friend, a Mormon, a student and a musician. I have been called to serve as a missionary for a year and a half in the Panamá Panamá City mission. I report to the Provo MTC for 3 weeks on JUNE 20TH followed by attending the Guatemala MTC for 6 weeks. I will speak Spanish, teach the gospel, make friends, write letters, walk a lot, be sun burnt, get tan, write in my journal, stay away from Malaria, be addressed as Hermana Schumacher and wear skirts past my knees. I will not watch TV, listen to the radio, use facebook, or call my family on days others than Mother's day and Christmas. Panamá, here I come!